


The Museum Job

by Lisacreature



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Ghosts, Alternate Universe - Mortal, Alternate Universe - Non-Immortal (The Old Guard), F/F, Immortal Husbands Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Immortal Wives Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, M/M, Museums
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 00:55:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,654
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28501839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisacreature/pseuds/Lisacreature
Summary: ‘She’s that intern that Dr Copley’s taken on,’ said Yusuf.‘Yes and she can see us,’ Booker pointed out.‘I can hear you all too.’____Nile finds after a slight tumble down some stairs she can now see ghosts and those ghosts desperately need her help.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache of Scythia/Quynh | Noriko, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 14
Kudos: 59
Collections: The Old Guard Mini Bang 2020





	The Museum Job

**Author's Note:**

> This is for The Old Guard Mini Bang and is the result of watching BBC's Ghosts, The Old Guard (for the 100th time) and Night at the Museum all within one weekend. 
> 
> The awesome cover art is done by the lovely runawaymarbles, link to their profile can be found here: https://runawaymarbles.tumblr.com/

* * *

Moving to the UK hadn’t been easy for Nile, she had come from the cold, windy streets of Chicago, where skyscrapers loomed, snow piled in winter and dark trouble lurked in alleyways. That was her home. Her mother took on the role of knight in shining armour after her dad died and kept Nile and her brother away from those dark alleyways and towards a better life – she cooked good, wholesome food even out of the cheapest of ingredients, she could stretch a dollar bill like no other and made birthday’s and Christmas’s glitter and shine with her radiant joy and love for life. Nile’s mother had done something that others might have deemed impossible, her children grew up on the right side of the law and achieving college educations. Nile’s brother was working for some insurance company in St. Louis and Nile was here in England, specifically Cambridge, or as the locals called when hearing her accent, the original Cambridge.

Nile had studied Art at college back in Chicago and then got a scholarship to do postgrad with a year studying abroad – she could have gone to Paris or Florence but she chose Cambridge, mostly to avoid any embarrassment over language with Parisians or Florentines. That had been short lived though for as soon as she left the borders of London and entered into East Anglia she soon realised that there was still a language barrier, it was just more nuanced. There was the strange pronunciations which didn’t match the spelling of the word, she didn’t think she could ever forgive Ruislip. Then there was the fact that every county seemed to end in ‘shire’ or simple words like ‘fanny’ had a completely different meaning, she had even turned down a gift because they had called it a ‘hamper’ and of course she hadn’t realised that it would have been basket stacked with goods.

There were lots of things Nile had to adapt to, but she loved the experience, from the novelty of using pounds rather than dollars to actually cycling rather than driving to college. The dorms too were old, far older than anywhere in the US, and she loved to wander through the winding, creaking corridors and discover little alcoves littered with graffiti from a century ago. She liked Cambridge, it was tiny in comparison to London or Chicago, but it was still bustling with people, mainly tourists and students and Nile normally considered it a good day when she wasn’t mistaken for a tourist – this was becoming her city now, and gradually, Cambridge was warming to her presence.

However, there was one place that had alluded her, The Fitzwilliam Museum. It wasn’t the only museum in Cambridge but it was the largest for it housed all sorts of things from Impressionist paintings to mummies, modern art to fine bone china plates, it was a mismatch of human creations. The building itself looked like a miniature of the British Museum back in London, with its tall columns, perfect symmetry and its grand lions that guarded the giant doors – an old folktale claimed that at the strike of midnight the lions sprung to life and prowl the grounds of the museum, eating any would-be thieves, Nile considered this no more than a drunks tale…how wrong she was.

* * *

Professor Pinker had called Nile to her office after Friday’s seminar and Nile had been certain that she wanted to talk about her last essay – did she include her bibliography? Were her footnotes in too small a font?

She sat a little straighter in the ancient leather armchair which creaked no matter how light the seater was. It made her wonder who had sat in the chair before her, a fleeting thought however as she heard the Professor mutter to herself as she leafed through a mountain of papers. Professor Pinker was probably the only person within the entire university who still insisted on essays being handwritten, she argued that to keep the gift of writing alive then one must never drop the pen, a nice thought yes but not very practical. Nile flushed at the memory of her own blue smudged essay, she hoped the Professor didn’t notice the ink fingerprints on page six.

‘Miss Freeman.’

‘Yes ma’am,’ said Nile, her spine flexing even straighter still and she resisted the urge to lift her hand to her forehead in salute.

‘I have been reading your piece,’ she paused and held up Nile’s essay, the scratchy handwriting underlined and circled in Professor Pinker’s red biro, ‘and I can see you have a keen interest in ancient artworks.’

‘Yes ma’am, I do.’

‘Good,’ she put the essay back down, ‘but I can see here that you’ve not had much experience with such artefacts,’ she gestured at the second paragraph on the third page, ‘you seem to write about them in a fangirlish manner, as if you are revering them rather than analysing.’

‘Uh, oh, erm,’ Nile bit her lip to stop herself from saying anything she might regret, ‘I-I am not sure what you mean.’

Professor Pinker sighed and put the essay back down onto the pile.

‘I think you need a more hands on experience, which is why I would like to offer you an opportunity. That is if you are interested?’

‘Well, yes I would be.’ Nile got the sense that saying no was not an option.

‘Excellent! A friend of mine at the Fitzwilliam is looking for an assistant, his name is Dr Copley and he specialises in ancient artefacts. Now, normally the university does not like its students to work during their studies, so yes you will be paid, but this will be classed strictly as research time, do you understand?’

The university had a strange rule wherein students were not allowed to work at all during term time, it was an old rule – something which Cambridge University had plenty of like how only the professors could walk across the grass lawn at King’s College or when attending dinner the student’s must wear formal dress. 

‘Yeah that’s fine with me ma’am.’

Professor Pinker smiled toothily, her teeth were slightly wonky and not all like her straight-laced persona.

‘Excellent, that is good to hear. Now, I have told Dr Copley that you will meet him today at four this afternoon.’

‘O-oh erm sure, I can meet him then.’

‘Wonderful. Now, run along and remember, this is not a job. Understood?’

‘Yes, ma’am, understood.’

Nile fought the urge to salute, courtesy or bow as she left Professor Pinker’s office.

Nile arrived at the museum shortly before 4 p.m. it being a Tuesday the place was mostly quiet with a scattering of a couple of pensioners and tourists. She climbed the steps and passed the huge lions that, if made of flesh and not stone, could bring down a fully grown elephant or two. Nile couldn’t help but shiver at a sudden cold chill that hit her as she walked into the grand entrance hall. The hall was something of a wonder, it had a high domed ceiling and polished walls made out of marble, of course there the many statues, busts and names of important (male) founders, inventors and explorers – the building was boastful.

Nile approached the welcome desk and asked for Dr Copley, the receptionists gave a dubious look but called his office and informed her that he’ll be down shortly and she to sit on the cold, marble bench by the door.

The museum was winding down for the day as more people left than entered into the great, circular hall. Nile didn’t have to wait long for a flustered man in a wrinkled parchment brown blazer and shirt hurried down the equally grand stairs. A tension that Nile hadn’t even noticed seemed to ping free as she saw that he was like her, he was black. Professor Pinker hadn’t thought to mention the pigment of his skin and, Nile supposed, she hadn’t needed to but now watching Dr Copley approach her she felt sudden relief that there was someone like her here.

‘Hello, are you Nile?’ he asked in a rich accent that sounded very proper.

‘Yes, hi, you must be Dr Copley?’

‘Indeed I am. Please, come this way.’

Nile gathered her things, a backpack and a jacket and then followed him across the hall and up the grand staircase. They entered through the first gallery, a long room with each wall dedicated to beautiful watercolour paintings in gilded bronze and gold frames. Dr Copley was a fast walker but so was Nile and she stretched her legs further to keep up. They soon left the watercolours behind and entered into a new gallery this time filled to the brim with portraits – all of them likely from respectable middle class, European families, their eyes seemed to follow them though not all of them showed scorn or indifference, some appeared joyous, tearful or peaceful. Leaving the room of many faces behind Nile was welcomed by a suit of well-polished armour standing guard outside a simple door that said ‘Dr Copley’.

‘Don’t mind Henry here, he makes for a good security guard most days.’

Nile smiled politely at his joke.

‘Well, do come in and have a seat.’

Nile and Dr Copley spoke for an hour going over what Nile studied, her academic interests and previous work experience. Dr Copley sounded delighted to hear her interest in ancient, middle east artefacts and he began discussing the great feud/debate he was having with Dr Lynson next door over who invented the art of writing first – the Assyrians or the Egyptians. Nile could easily imagine how nerdy and heated the arguments must get during the museum Christmas party, they probably re-enacted the Peloponnesian War with salt and pepper shakers.

‘Right, so you can begin today?’

‘Sure!’

It had been a week since Nile had started working at the museum and she was starting to get used to the big building with its cold walls and grand displays. She was mainly Dr Copley’s assistant, caring for the artefact display cases (children had grubby fingers), searching the archives and updating records. It was basic and beginner level but she didn’t mind for she was surrounded by art and history, her ideal environment.

She spent lunch with the other members of staff in the simple staff room or the café if it was a quiet day and they told her all the secrets of the museum, from the extremely relaxed HR policies to the past (and maybe even present affairs). But, as it was October and the nights were beginning to draw in, stories of a supernatural nature began to circulate.

That lunch time Nile chewed on her tuna sandwich as she listened to Gabrielle, the gift shop assistant, talk about one particular ghost story that she had supposedly heard from a friend of the witness…or was it a friend of a friend?

‘So, basically, at the strike of midnight, Danny said he could hear footsteps walking a lap in the room above him which is the attic and no one but the caretaker has the key to there,’ she said whilst plaiting her dyed pink hair.

‘Right.’

‘And then, the next night, he said he could hear a moaning from the Weaponry room. Again, he said that he was certain it was a man but when he went to look there was no one there!’

The museum had an impressive, albeit slightly disturbing, collection of weaponry spanning over three thousand years, there were swords from the Crusades to rifles used in the Civil Wars. 

‘I mean, couldn’t he just had been tired, he was a security guard wasn’t he?’ Nile tried to reason, believing in ghosts wasn’t really her thing – she had done the Ouija board when she was thirteen at a sleepover but that was about it.

‘Yeah, that’s what he thought too. But then, on one of his day shifts he saw a woman.’

‘A woman?’

‘Yeah, she was standing in the Egyptology department, by one of the mummies and he said it looked like she was crying.’

‘Could she had been a visitor?’

‘No, because when Danny approached her she disappeared.’

Nile just raised one eyebrow, ‘Is that it?’

‘Well, what else was she going to do? Dance a jig?!’

‘I don’t know, I was expecting at least a Sir Headless Nick sort of thing, it would make much more sense as to why he resigned.’

Gabrielle sighed in defeat and then sipped at her tenth cup of tea, ‘You make for a terrible listener for a ghost story.’

Nile laughed, ‘sorry.’

It was true, Nile was no believer. She had seen _The Exorcist_ and all the other scary films with ghosts and mainly laughed at them or jumped at the jump scares, but deep down she knew it wasn’t real. For her, ghosts, aliens and bigfoot were all just stories and nothing more, humans were far more scarier than anything supernatural.

* * *

There were many ghosts who presided in the great museum known as the Fitzwilliam. These ghosts had been brought here, albeit accidently, by the living via the means of archaeological digs, expeditions, family donations and theft. There were a couple of ghosts who had closer connections to the museum, such as the cantankerous caretaker, Mr Giggs who had died of a heart attack in 1919.

Most of the time the ghosts couldn’t be seen, heard or felt by the living, but that didn’t mean to say that they didn’t leave their mark on the world. Take for example Quynh. She was two thousand years old and was brought back from Vietnam in a piece of Jade that had been cut into the shape of an elephant. The object which she had been connected to had been lost along with her body in a shipwreck in the port of Hanoi, hence why she left salty, water puddles in her wake. These mysterious puddles caused a great deal of confusion to the cleaners and care takers of the museum, they inspected the plumbing, the roof tiles to even the security cameras but could never find a plausible source.

Quynh couldn’t help nor control it, though she did delight in causing some mischief with her puddles – after all, she didn’t like the curator of East Asia exhibit and whenever she could she would leave a puddle for him to slip on. 

That day however Quynh had been standing at the top of the stairs in the Main Hall watching the visitors enter the museum. People watching was one of the few hobbies a ghost could claim to have.

However, with all this staring from above of course meant that she had completely lost track of the time and hadn’t at all noticed the great puddle of water that was at her feet and was slowly slipping out from between her bare toes and creeping down the steps. At least she hadn’t noticed, not until Nile walked straight through her, slipped on the wet marble floor, and fell straight down the stairs, her head smashing against the marble floor, her blood forming a new puddle.

Nile blinked her eyes, her vision going foggy and she could hear the shrill cries of the museum visitors and staff rushing to where she landed, at the bottom of the cold, marble stairs. She felt like she was lying on a lake of ice, even her bones felt the cold.

‘Nile! Stay with me Nile!’ called a male voice, Dr Copley she thought.

Nile turned her head and that was when she saw…them.

There was an Asian woman, drenched head to toe and black straight hair that fell to her knees – she looked both terrifying and beautiful, beside her was another woman more befitting a glorious warrior for she wore leather armour and her gaze was steely as she lay a reassuring hand on the drenched woman’s shoulder. There were others too, two men, their arms were wrapped tightly around the other’s waists, the shorter of the pair – a pale, European man with tangled mousy brown hair rested his head on the other’s shoulder.

They all looked so sad. Why were they so sad, they were just hallucinations weren’t they? Was it maybe Nile’s subconscious basically telling her that she was dying?!

Before Nile could think much more on the matter a paramedic with green eyes had rushed to her side and then, the world went black.

* * *

Lykon was the President of the Ghost Committee, it sounded more austere than the responsibility actually entailed, usually he chaired their weekly ghost meetings discussing nothing much apart from the planned museum events for that month and whether their poltergeist activity had been noticed.

He sighed deeply, today was very different, as he sat from his seat – a throne dating back to his days surfing the Nile, encased in ivory, gold and pearls, he watched as the hundred ghostly residents argued, tossed insults and pulled faces at the other –

Booker, the French Napoleonic soldier, was hurling his wine at some British redcoat and a Russian knight similarly but with his vodka. Yusuf was being held back from strangling an American cowboy by his husband Nicky. 

In the centre of all of this madness was Quynh, her eyes downcast towards her bare feet where a puddle was growing with every second – the puddles always formed when she was scared or nervous. She looked as if she had stood through a typhoon, again not her normal, radiant form, but she had been through so much in her afterlife that she sometimes reverted to an older form depending on her mood, like the puddles it was another sign that she wasn’t doing well. Andromache was waving her axe at anyone who dared come close to her wife.

‘She’s killed a mortal, she must be punished!’ called the Ghost of a Roman Legionary.

‘You touch her you filthy Latin and I will send you to the Pit!’ said Andromache, her axe spiralling faster and faster in the air.

‘Did you not see the ambulance, 21st century medicine is far better than what we had in our day, she’ll probably be back tomorrow with not even a headache,’ reasoned the 10th century Japanese poet whose name always escaped Lykon.

‘Or she’s dead and the girls family will be suing the museum out of business! Who is going to want to visit a museum that kills its visitors!’ screeched a French woman whose portrait hung in the hallway.

‘We’ll be cast away again or sent back into storage!’ cried a little Aztec boy, his bone dagger was displayed on the second floor.

Lykon knew this couldn’t last.

‘Enough!’

He was always stills surprised that the other ghosts listened to him, it might be because he was the eldest amongst them, with ghosts age carried a great deal of weight. In his former life he had been a chariot rider fighting in many wars that were now known under different names or had yet to be discovered by the Egyptologists that visited his exhibit.

‘Quynh will provide her statement to the jury and they will decide then on the outcome tomorrow after first roll call,’ he paused to look at her, she wasn’t responding, eyes glazed over but the puddle was no longer growing at her feet, ‘Andromache, see to it that she stays calm and doesn’t wander into public areas.’

Andromache nodded and gently took Quynh’s hand, slowly guiding her off the Greek marble pedestal. The other ghosts quieted down not too long afterwards, the main drama having drifted out of the room. Lykon resolved to carry on as normal and began reciting the announcements.

‘The museum will be hosting a dinner for Dr McCarthy’s retirement on Thursday evening in Gallery 12, so the residents of the Impressionist’s exhibit will temporarily be moved to Gallery 10 with the Romantics, any questions?’

Lykon should have known better than to ask for a response, the ghosts of Galleries 10 and 12 were a boisterous lot.

‘I am not sharing my space with those polka dots!’

* * *

Nile awoke to the motion of driving backwards, it made her head spin and her stomach swirl like her washer, her last meal threatening to rush back up her throat.

‘Hey there Nile, take it easy, you’re in an ambulance.’

She didn’t hear much more after that as she focused more on vomiting in a paper bag. Once her stomach had emptied itself her world went black and the ambulance disappeared from view.

When Nile came to again she was in a hospital ward and wrapped inside blue sheets.

‘Ahh shit,’ she moaned.

* * *

Nicky liked to follow the tour groups. He corrected the guides when they inevitably got a date wrong or mispronounced a name. It was a good way for him to stretch his legs and venture around the museum outside his and Yusuf’s exhibit. They were on the ground floor, just down from the delightful giftshop and café was the Medieval Warfare room where suits of armour, broadswords, maces and other weapons were displayed. Nicky was connected to a Genoese sword with a black leather wrapped hilt, he was beside Yusuf’s saif a curved blade that still caught people’s attention centuries after it had last been used. Their home was a popular room to visit, especially with schoolchildren who huddled around their glass cases and accidently set off security alarms, they were often a delight to listen to as they giggled and mimicked sword battles in their childish innocence.

But now he was walking through the Ancient civilisations exhibit with a group of fifteen Italians, an elderly couple from Genoa were trailing behind and Nicky accompanied them as they read the displays in their own time, they showed no concern in keeping up with the guide. Mrs Wilde, the guide, was a merry, older woman with short white hair and decked in a rainbow of jewellery. She could speak a good number of languages but had the occasional habit of slipping into French.

‘Nicky!’

Nicky turned away from his group and saw Andromache coming towards him, her warrior dress looked bloody and not in its usual pristine condition. She was worried.

‘Have you seen Quynh?’

‘No, I haven’t seen her since the gathering.’

Andromache groaned, ‘I don’t know what’s gotten into her, she keeps disappearing off.’

Quynh had always been a wandering soul, she could never sit still for long, possibly because in her former life she had led a nomadic life moving from city to city, port to port, from what she had told him she had walked the entire length of Vietnam probably three times. She, along with every other ghost within the museum, could not leave its grounds for they were all tied to a certain object and for as long as it remained at the museum forever the ghost tied to it will remain too.

‘Have you tried the gardens?’

‘Yes, she not there, I’ve even checked the toilets!’

Nicky grimaced at the thought, ghosts rarely went to the toilets, no one needed to watch visitors doing their business or worse…

‘Well, she couldn’t have gone far, let’s check the canteen.’

Andromache bit her lip and nodded before falling into step beside him.

During their hunt they found other ghosts like Booker, who was caught assessing the alcoholic drinks in the bar area, he was one of the few ghosts who could move objects him still being a young(ish) spirit compared to Yusuf, Nicky or Andromache. Booker was pushing the clean shot glasses across the polished bar something that would have been boring for a human was absolutely enthralling for a ghost. They questioned Booker and he had said that he thought he’d seen Quynh in the entrance hall by the revolving doors. But when they got there she was nowhere in sight, aside from a small puddle by the umbrella stand, which if it had been raining then would have been perfectly normal but it was bright, grey day.

‘She’s close.’

Next they wandered down to the classrooms in the basement where the schoolchildren were usually herded in to do crafts and activities like making their paper crowns or hand painting portraits. There they found Yusuf, he’d always been an artist and often liked to join the art classes the museum organised, today it was just ten-year-olds reimagining a medieval knights armour, some of the colours used being delightfully garish.

‘She was in here earlier and then she just disappeared.’

‘What direction did she go in?’ said Andromache.

‘She didn’t really go in any direction, I blinked and then she was gone.’

Yusuf frowned as he continued to explain what had happened.

‘She had seemed so happy when I was talking to her, I was showing her what the children from the last class had made and she had seemed to have brightened up enough to have not left anymore puddles, but then she just vanished.’

Ghosts don’t normally vanish, that was something that needed to be stated, ghosts were still humans just not in pure physical forms, rather they inhabited three realms, the living, the dead and the afterlife. Spirits were beings that had fully passed onto the afterlife whilst ghosts hopped across the different borders like hopscotch. It was all a strange science that neither Yusuf nor Nicky fully understood and they had been dead for nine hundred years, but the point still stands – Ghosts don’t disappear, they walk, run or glide, they are after all still human though they didn’t always obey the rules of gravity.

‘I think we should speak to Lykon,’ said Nicky.

But Lykon had also disappeared, along with half of the other ghosts.

* * *

She was lucky, that was what the doctors told her, falling from such a height and landing on hard marble her skull should be fractured like a jigsaw embedded in her brain or at least a dislocated ankle, but aside from a mild concussion she was fine, not even a headache. They had kept her in overnight just to be safe, though in reality sleeping in a ward with beeping machinery, heavy footed nurses and a lady across from her snoring, Nile did wonder how an overnight stay could possibly help.

After a breakfast of soggy cereal and a bland coffee she was allowed to go home, and as soon she stepped outside the doors her phone (the battery miraculously on 39%) blew up with messages and voicemails from her roommates, her brother, her mum and even Dr Copley. Nile scanned through all the well-wishing messages, she knew she should call her mum but Nile would wait until she got back home.

Nile picked up the number 10 bus from the hospital and sat on the upper floor, it was maybe childish but she could not get over her glee that she could ride a double decker bus every day, the novelty had yet to ware off. Cambridge was slow that morning, packed with cars and taxis and the many death defying cyclists, the bus inched further into the city until the hospital and the housing estate it was surrounded by bled away into older buildings, there were Victorian townhouses with grand bay windows and climbing ivy – she didn’t catch the sign of the road she was on but it wasn’t far from the station, the houses no longer belonged to families but rather transformed into student dorms, flats and even offices.

Then the bus turned left at the Church of Our Lady, a huge Gothic building of reddish brown stone, a colour imposed upon it because of the century of pollution no doubt.

The bus wasn’t meant to stop at the museum but as they slowly approached it Nile couldn’t help but press down on the buzzer, the bell chimed across the bus and the stop sign came on. Nile took the steep stairs carefully, not wanting to push her luck, and thanked the grouchy driver and stepped onto the path just outside the museum.

The iron gates were open as usual and a trickle of visitors were walking inside even at this time of day.

She should get home, she should rest – sleep in a real bed, eat a good lunch and just rest, but something was pulling her here, it was an irresistible urge, her hands tingled and her ears buzzed even her eyes couldn’t settle as they searched the exterior. It was like she was seeing the building for the first time, again, she was drinking in the lion statues, the modern concrete archways, the columns, the Victorian glass, even the 20th century extension. It was all new to her, but also not new.

Nile knew she wouldn’t be going home, not yet. She walked up the stairs, taking her time so as not to slip again and walked through the revolving doors. Thankfully the ladies at the reception desk were busy with a group of tourists so Nile was able to sneak past. She didn’t know where she was going or what she was doing, rather she allowed herself to follow the natural flow of her mind as it took her from room to room, she wandered the corridors and gazed at the artefacts and artworks. Eventually she arrived at the East Asia exhibit, the collection was primarily made up of Chinese ceramics and Japanese fabrics, except for one small piece – a delicate piece of Jade which had been smoothly cut into the shape of an elephant. It was tiny but beautiful, the craftmanship evident in the way the chip marks created structure and shape to such a small gem. Looking down she read the display information:

_Jade Elephant, circa 1500s, Vietnam_

_This jade fragment, shaped as an elephant, was found amongst the Hội An Wreck lies 22 miles off the coast of central Vietnam in the South China Sea. What makes this piece unusual is that the ship was carrying a large cargo of Vietnamese ceramics dated to the mid- to late 15th century and still experts still don’t understand how this piece ended up on the ship._

But in bold, a new note had been added to the description –

**This piece will be loaned out to the Merrick Institute (private collection), as of 23 rd November. **

‘Oh look, she’s alive!’ said a voice behind in the doorway.

‘I can see that my love, though I am surprised that she’s standing upright.’

‘Ahh the wonders of 21st century medicine, soon enough they will be able to cure a stab wound to the heart. Alas it is a bit too late for me.’

‘Yusuf, I don’t remember stabbing you in the heart.’

What the hell?! Nile whirled around to see two men gazing lovingly at each other as if they were reciting romantic poetry rather than their murderous, questionably kinky exploits.

The man, Yusuf, smiled with a dazzling set of white teeth, ‘I did not mean that my dear, though if I remember correctly I think you punctured my left lung – you’ve always left me breathless. But no, I meant how you have pierced my heart with your beauty, my love.’

The other man chuckled and Nile noticed that the two were holding hands, ‘And you sliced my throat so cleanly, you certainly have a gift for making me speechless.’

Another person, a blonde man in a blue uniform, stepped forward, breaking the two apart as they had seemed to gravitate towards the other. Nile had never seen such romantics, not even in rom-coms, it would have been sweet if it weren’t for the disturbing murderous context.

‘I hate to break this up but she’s looking at us.’

‘Don’t be silly Booker! She’s probably still a bit dazed,’ said Yusuf.

‘No, she is looking right at you.’

‘Maybe she has the gift of partial hearing? There was that psychic lady a couple of years ago,’ said Nicky.

‘Was she the one who complained to security about our lovemaking in the storage cupboard?’

‘Urgh! Enough! Come on, they’re clearly not here.’

‘Hey hold up!’ said Nile with a courage she didn’t think she ever possessed.

The three ghosts stopped as ordered and turned to stare at her with wide eyes, she half expected their eyeballs to pop out of their skulls like in those Scooby Doo cartoons.

‘She can see us?’ said Yusuf.

‘She can see us, darling.’

‘Erm, now what do we do?’ said Booker.

‘How about you stop talking about me as if I’m not here and you explain what the hell you are doing here?!’

‘Well, to be honest, we could ask the exact same thing to you,’ said Nicky.

‘Don’t play cute with me.’

‘Cute? Him?’ said Booker.

‘Well, he is cute, especially when he –‘

‘Seriously! Now is not the time!’ cried Booker.

Before Nile could butt in another person stepped through the wall to her right, a woman, bedecked in leather armour and furs with an axe strapped to her back.

‘Have you found anyone yet?’

‘Err, well technically yes…’ replied Yusuf as if addressing his superior officer.

The woman turned and stared right into Nile’s eyes, her personal space all but ignored by the fourth ghost, they were literally nose to nose.

‘She’s that intern that Dr Copley’s taken on,’ said Yusuf.

‘Yes and she can see us,’ Booker pointed out.

‘Can hear you all too.’

It was strange how with every new ghost entering the room Nile was beginning to feel like she was the odd one. Studying the newest ghost to arrive Nile recognised the axe strapped to her back, it was in one of the glass cabinets on the first floor, though if she remembered correctly the display information had said that the owner of the axe would have been a male warrior from the Eurasian Steps – clearly that would need to be corrected now. 


End file.
